I Taught Amon
by Plaid Beans
Summary: After a chance encounter with a terrifying waterbender, Nami reveals a secret power that has managed to keep her alive throughout an abusive childhood. Nami realizes years later that what happened that night was the catalyst that created the feared leader of the anti-bender revolution.


**AN: I was a big fan of the **_**Avatar **_**series, but not that big of the **_**Korra **_**spin-off. However, I felt that Amon was one of the best villians on TV at the time, and this was something I wrote a while back when I was obsessed with him. Enjoy! Read/ Fav/ Review! Thanks!**

The water rushed around my legs, threatening to push me over with its current, but I didn't flinch. It felt nice to just feel the natural power of water. Water was so incredibly strong, even without a bender's control.

But it was time for me to return home, so I willed the water to fill the bucket I had sitting on the riverbank. A stream of water flew into the air, circled around my waist, and flew over to the bucket. And I didn't even have to raise a finger.

That's when I saw the movement behind the trees on the other side of the river.

"Who's there?" I shouted into the shadows of the forest. It was almost dusk, and it was hard to see anything, let alone a man hiding behind the shadow of a tree. At least I thought I saw a man.

There was no response for a long time. I stood still as an antlerbunny, just staring at where I swore I had seen movement. But eventually I lost my patience, and turned around to leave.

My bucket of water was missing.

I spun back around in the river, pulling the water up with me as a whip. The person I had seen earlier was standing up river from me. My water bucket was floating in the air next to him.

"You're a waterbender too," I said, but the realization didn't make me relax. In fact, I had the distinct gut-instinct that there was something very wrong in him. There were no other waterbenders on this small island off the coast of the Fire Nation. In fact, there were no benders living on this island except for me.

My skin prickled.

The boy looked calm, as if he hadn't even noticed my water whip. He wasn't nervous at all, like he didn't believe I could hurt him.

"I want directions to the town, that's all," he said, answering my unasked question of what he wanted.

He looked like he was about 18, and he definitely wasn't from the Fire Nation. He wore the typical blue and white fur clothes of a Water Tribe member. I had never lived in a Water Tribe, but I recognized the clothes because my father had so many.

"Why were you hiding from me?" I snipped at him, dropping my water whip a half an inch because I was starting to doubt my instincts. Maybe this boy wasn't a threat after all.

The corner of his lip tilted up slightly into a smirk. "The town must be close if you can walk to it without shoes," he noted, seeing I was barefoot. "You don't mind if I take this bucket, right?"

"Actually, I do," I snapped, flicking the water whip up. "Because it's mine."

"I'm thirsty," He declared as if it were the simplest excuse in the world. I suppose it was, but it wasn't satisfactory for me.

I waved my hand around, causing the current of the river to shift around me. "There's a whole river at your disposal."

"But I'm traveling."

"I don't care."

"Neither do I—about your approval," he said and the bucket flew back over to the riverbank, spilling the water and rolling along the mud. "I was only being polite."

A wave of water rushed at me, but I quickly dispersed it, and slashed at him with my whip. But he was strong, a talented bender without a doubt, and immediately pulled my own water whip from me and froze my feet down. I threw some ice daggers at him, which he dodged with relative ease, and quickly unfroze myself. Wave. Whip. Ice. Over and over we attacked each other, neither of us gaining any ground in this battle. I hadn't fought like this ever before, and it was terrifying. The look in this kid's eyes, it was more animalistic than anything I had ever seen. I knew if I didn't get out on top, then I wouldn't get out of this fight at all.

Finally I pushed a wave of water at him that was strong enough to knock him backwards. I dove into the river, and propelled myself down it, towards the ocean. When I emerged at the estuary, I took a huge breath of air in relief and exhaustion. The ocean was before me, and the river pouring out behind me. The sun was going down, but the moon was already in the sky. Nearly full. Maybe a day or two away from being completely full.

I had relaxed because I had escaped from my attacker with my life, and I suppose I had been sloppy. Suddenly a whirlpool of water sucked me under with such speed I didn't even have time to take a breath. I swirled around uncontrollably, water rushing into my mouth and my lungs. Drowning. I was drowning.

With all my might and power I turned the whirlpool around and created a water-tornado that thrust me out of the water. I saw the boy who had attacked me, and directed my massive column of water at him, about to push him deep into the estuary. Then_ he_ would be the one fighting for his own breath.

But suddenly, my entire body was spasming, all of my muscles in revolt against what my brain wanted. My water-tornado had fallen limply back into the estuary, and I was left awkwardly struggling for control of my body in mid air. I cried out of the pain, and knew there was only one thing I could do help myself.

It took all my concentration, but I knew if I could do this, then he wouldn't have a choice but to stop. Everyone I had ever tried this on stopped what they were doing because they were in so much pain. It wasn't even close what this boy was doing to me now, but I figured, maybe, just maybe, it would be enough.

I concentrated on giving him a headache. No, not just a headache. A terrible, throbbing, all-consuming tremor in his temples. All the while my body continued to convulse in the air, but quickly I started to lower down, back towards the water. I still couldn't bend, the boy still had control over me, but once I was a few feet above the water, I plummeted down. I watched the boy crumpled in pain a few feet away from me, before the water swallowed me again.

The estuary was calm as I sank to the soft sandy bottom. There were no powers controlling it in that moment, and again I felt the relief of being with the power of an uninterrupted element. But I couldn't stay at the bottom forever, I had to breathe, so I propelled myself in one swift kick all the way to the shore.

I was lying on the wet sand, breathing heavily and sharply, trying to relax my muscles which were still incredibly tense and in great pain. I pulled the water around me and tried to use my healing to fix myself. It had limited effect because I didn't have an open wound.

Exhausted and extraordinarily sore, I barely mustered the strength to freeze some water into a dagger in my hand when I saw the boy approaching.

"Please, just leave me alone," I begged, hoping he would listen.

"What did you do to my head back there?" He asked, still rubbing his temples.

"What did you do to my body?" I retorted. The boy dropped his hand from his head.

"This," he stated, and then my body convulsed again. I watched as the hand with the dagger rose to my own neck, pressing the cold, sharp ice into my own throat. Betrayal by my own body. It felt terrible.

"Stop!" I cried out, feeling the blade dig into my flesh.

"Ugh!" The boy groaned, and ended my torture with his palms smashed against his forehead. "That. You did it again."

I threw the ice dagger away from me when I had control of my body again. I was sorer than ever, and I quickly used some water to heal my bleeding neck.

"Just, don't do that to me again, and I won't try and hurt you again," I compromised.

"I've never encountered anybody who could do what you just did," the boy said, his tone complementary and slightly envious. "You're a waterbender, a healer, and what?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "It's not something I do very often, anymore." The boy sat down next to me, and I scooted away from him. I was still lying down, and I didn't like that I had to look up to see him. Weakly, I pushed myself up into a sitting position. "But you know what you are. Tell me."

"A waterbender. Same as you," he replied carelessly, evasively.

"Liar. What you did back there. What you did to me just now. It was like, it was like you were controlling everything about me." The boy's dark blue eyes turned towards the ocean. I thought for a moment he was drifting off, but the look in his eyes just grew more determined and envious by the moment. "Like you were a, a bloodbender or something." When I finally said those words 'bloodbender,' his eyes darted back to mine.

My father had told me stories of how corrupt it was to bloodbend. How even good people with such an ability, could become evil. It was illegal now thanks to the Avatar and Katara. But I knew that it could still be used, but only on a full moon.

And it wasn't a full moon.

The boy just stared at me, as if willing me to continue. But I didn't have anything more to say. He couldn't be a bloodbender. It wasn't possible to do that now.

But how was it possible I could give people such terrible headaches? Headaches that were so unbearable people couldn't continue doing anything, even their own bending?

Maybe there were exceptions.

Maybe he was one of them.

"You _are _a bloodbender. And you bend without moving," I finally decided.

"So do you. I saw you put the water in that bucket without moving your hands."

"That was just water, I don't do that with people!"

"Then what are those headaches you give?"

"I _don't_ bloodbend," I replied as coldly and firmly as I could muster. Bloodbending was a terrible offense.

"But you can."

I didn't want to continue with this conversation. I tried to stand up, but the effort was too much alone. I waved over some water to help push me to my feet. The boy followed my lead.

"You've tried bloodbending before, haven't you? You're ashamed of it. Controlling others is the ultimate evil, right?" He asked me, one question, quickly followed by the next. It was too much for me to think about in my current state. His bloodbending had exhausted me. I seriously doubted that I would be able to drag myself home, and that was if he stopped pestering me.

"Why are you saying this? You obviously don't believe it. You almost killed me back there!" I spat at him.

"I wasn't going to kill you with the bloodbending. That was just because I was afraid you were going to kill me. And I do believe that bloodbending is the ultimate evil. Whole heartedly."

"Then why do you bloodbend? Just to protect yourself?"

"Yes and no. I suspect it's the same reason you've tried bloodbending yourself. It's to get what I want. What I wanted then was to protect myself. What you wanted with your little headache power is to save your own life. We both got what we wanted."

"I just want you to leave me alone," I groaned.

"I just want everyone to be equal."

"I think you're crazy." Actually, I knew he was crazy.

"Your headaches, is that just bloodbending, but only in the head?"

"I don't know," I sighed, swaying a little on my feet. It's not like I had conducted any scientific studies in the headaches I was able to cause. They just happened.

He grabbed my arm, forcing me to stay with him. "Let me try," and then I had the most agonizing head pain in my life. I crumpled down to my knees, and the boy dropped my arm. I moaned and grabbed my head in an effort to soothe the pain.

It felt more terrible than anything I had ever dealt out to another person. This boy was a psychopath.

"Don't do that. Don't do that again. Those headaches, bloodbending, it is _dangerous_. If you do it too much to a person… It messes them up for good."

"What do you mean?" he asked. His voice, for the first time, seemed to hint at some emotional capacity. It was only the tiniest indication in his tone, but he seemed nervous. Or maybe, excited?

I didn't respond. All my concentration was on getting myself to my feet. The boy held out his hand, but of course I was reluctant to accept. In the end, I ignored his attempt at chivalry, and slowly managed to get myself up.

"What do you mean it messes people up for good?" I started to walk away from him, and he didn't follow. "One more step," his voice turning dark, "And I'll do it again. And I won't stop until you tell me everything. Or, I won't stop until I see for myself how it messes a person up for good."

I stopped dead in my tracks. This boy _was_ a real psychopath. "I don't know for sure," I said. "Please, I'm tired. I just want to go home."

"Tell me what you think you know."

"And you'll let me leave?"

He nodded, but I doubted the integrity of his promise.

"My mother died during childbirth. My father raised me himself. He was a waterbender. He taught me everything."

"Even the headaches?"

"No. Not that."

"Continue."

"When I was 8 he married this woman named Atarah. She never liked me, but she loved my father until the day he died, which was two years later. After that, she allowed me to stay in her house, I was just a child then, but she didn't treat me well. Neither did her sons. They were all older, all firebenders.

"I was strong, but it was impossible to protect myself all the time from so many of them. They would burn me, but I could heal myself, so they would just burn me again. If I used any of my powers on them enough to severely hurt them, then I was beaten. It wasn't fair, my stepmom would say, that they could hurt me as bad as they wanted and I could always heal, but if I hurt them they could only suffer until I took it away.

"I was desperate. I did practice bloodbending on full moons. But it was wrong. I was hurting the rats that I tried it on. I couldn't listen to them squealing without thinking of myself. I was just doing to those innocent animals what my stepfamily was doing to me. It wasn't fair.

"It was by complete accident that I realized I could do those headaches to other people. I started with my stepbrother Koray. He was the oldest, the strongest. He used to slap me on the back just to see his handprint burned in my skin. I didn't realize what I had done to him until a few times later. I realized that whenever I was in pain or afraid and I wished that he would stop, Koray would come down with a terrible headache. Eventually he went to the Fire Academy, and left the house. His brothers would leave too, but because of the headaches. They claimed that the climate of the island was not conducive to future firebenders. Slowly, all the benders would leave this island, believing what my stepbrothers had said to be true.

Atarah knew it was a lie. She knew that her son's were in pain, but she didn't know it was because of me. She let them go, but it made her more vile to live with. She was cruel to me, and I was secretly cruel back. I gave her headaches that were worse than anything I had given to her sons. I would give her migraines that put her in bed for days. Atarah was a firebender as well, but after years of my headaches…"

"What?" The boy asked. "Go on."

"I haven't seen her firebend in years. I don't believe she can, anymore."

"I want to see her. I want to meet her myself."

I winced at the suggestion. Taking this stranger to my home seemed like the worst idea in the world. "You said you would let me go. Practice on yourself and see what it can do."

"Or I can just practice on you some more?"

"No! No!" I squeaked out before he could even do anything to me. He just stared back at me, knowing he was going to get his way. "I think you would have trouble getting home without my help anyways. Please, allow me."

Now he extended her arm for me to hold and I couldn't imagine what would happen next. This boy was all over the map with his emotions and his intentions. It was literally impossible to know what he would do next. But he was probably right. In my current state, I would have had quite a difficult time walking the mile and a half uphill to get back to my house. So I reluctantly grabbed his arm.

It took us over an hour to get back to our rural house. It was pretty much a cabin in the middle of a forest at the end of a long windy dirt road. Atarah bought it shortly after all her son's left her. I suspected she wanted to be somewhere where no bender's lived, so her lack of ability would be perceived as normal. Furthermore, I imagined she didn't want to be reminded of her normalcy when she socialized, so she purchased the most secluded house on the market.

"Atarah," I called out slowly as we entered the house.

At first there was no response, and the devil inside of me hoped that Atarah had finally died and there would be nothing for this stranger to see in my home and he would just leave. Atarah never left the house, so if she wasn't dead, then she was definitely here.

"Finally," she croaked out from the kitchen. "I've been waiting ages for my tea. What? Did you fall into the river?" I looked over to the stranger, trying to assess any emotions on his face that could give away his thoughts. Of course, there was nothing to see.

Atarah stayed in the kitchen, waiting for us to bring her the water.

The water. Of course we didn't bring that. She was going to be furious.

The strange boy helped me wander over to the kitchen. Atarah had her back to us, she was staring into the fireplace, watching the flames dance. I could feel the boy's arm muscles tense with excitement. If she was still a firebender, he would probably be able to tell with the fire so readily available to her.

"Atarah," I started nervously. "I brought a… a guest."

She turned around, the action taking her great effort. Atarah was only 40, but she looked almost double her age. Depression and inactivity had definitely done a number on her. She was also about triple the size someone her age should be.

"I'm Noatak."

"Oh, great. A Water Tribe boy. You know, they're no good." I'm sure this was some backhanded comment about my father, but I could never understand why she resented him so much. They were very happy together when he was married to her. I suppose she just hated the fact that he had died so young, and left me. "What? You forgot the water too? Were you so distracted by a boy finally taking an interest in you that you just forgot all your duties? Ohh Nami… You're lucky that there's company or I would really lose my temper."

Noatak. His name rang strange in my ears, just like his personality. I had spent so much time with this boy in the past few hours, said things I had never said to another person before, and this was the first time I had heard his name.

I looked over at the boy and noticed his eyes weren't even on Atarah, they were on the fire behind her. "Nami tells me your sons left for the Fire Academy. Are you a firebender as well?"

Atarah's dark eyes turned to me. "Nami shouldn't talk about me when I'm not around to tell the truth. People say all sorts of things when there's no one to tell them otherwise."

The boy finally unwrapped his arm from mine and pulled out a vial from his pocket. "I have some water here, if you would like some to make your tea."

Finally Atarah seemed less unhappy. The wrinkles on her face moved away from their almost constant position as furrowed brows and wrinkled nose, like a perpetual stink face. But after Noatak's offer, she almost smiled. Almost.

"What a gentleman. Maybe they're raising them better in the Water Tribe these days."

Noatak moved the water out of the vial with a flick of his hand and it hovered over the open flame to warm up. Atarha's face wrinkled back up again with the show of bending. "I have a teapot somewhere over here," she said, lifting her gigantic form off of the chair and moving over to the cupboards. She retrieved the teapot and brought it over to Noatak. "Put the water in here boy, and stop showing off."

He complied but got in Atarah's way when she moved to put the pot over the flame.

"Heat it with your bending."

"I don't like to exert myself before bed, and I don't appreciate a child telling me what to do."

"Or can't you firebend?" Noatak countered.

"I can, I just chose not to."

"Nami says she hasn't seen you bend in years."

"Nami is a liar! And she isn't with me at all hours of the day." She pushed past Noatak and tried to put the pot on the flame.

Suddenly the water came out of the spout and floated in the air again. "What are you doing, child?" Atarah spat, waving the teapot around in anger with her large, rolly arms.

The boy's eyes gleamed with tiny reflections of the fire. I cringed, sensing a confrontation.

"If you can bend," he challenged, "then you can just evaporate this water."

"Why would I?" Atarah retorted.

"To keep from drowning."

And then the water formed a giant watery bubble around her head. Atarah dropped the pot to the floor, with a loud _crash _and began to flail her arms around like she was trying to fly. She slashed at the bubble, but any water she managed to move quickly rejoined the rest as if it were magnetized. Her screams let out her final reserves of air into tiny, frantic bubbles.

"Stop!" I commanded, and pushed the water orb away from Atarah's face so the old woman could breathe. Noatak quickly put me down with a strong headache. He gathered the water again and began to smother Atarah. I tried to give him a headache too, but it wasn't strong enough to stop him. After a minute, Atarah fell to the floor, with a sound as loud and thunderous as a platypus bear sitting down. The water melted away from her head, leaving her eyes wide open in a perpetual state of horror. Atarah, the woman who had tortured me throughout my young adult life, and whom I had tortured back, was dead.

"She couldn't stop it," Noatak said. "You were right. She can't bend anymore."

"You killed her?" The disbelief in my voice made it sound like more of a question than a statement of facts. Atarah was dead. I had brought her murderer into our home.

"I had to see if it was true. She would have bended to save her life if she could. But she couldn't." Noatak sounded just as cold as I felt. "This power you and I have, we can take away anyone's bending. We can make everyone equal."

It was like this boy and I weren't even a part of the same world. I had no idea what he was talking about. My mind could barely wrap itself around the fact that my step mother was lying dead in the puddle of water that had drowned her, not a foot from where I was lying. I crawled up to my knees and scooted away from her body.

"We could change the world," I think Noatak had been talking to me for a while, but evidently I had missed most of it. He looked at me with excitement and hope and ambition. These were emotions that I could not justify in my current state.

"You need to leave," I demanded. "There is no 'we.' There is just me staying here with my dead stepmom, and you leaving. And don't you ever come back."

"There will always be an us. You and I are the only people who have this power. We are the only people who can truly make a difference in this world by leveling the playing field. No one will ever be tortured by a bender again. We can fix it all."

"_Get out!" _I screamed, and hurdled a quick slash of a water whip at him. It his him along the arm, immediately opening up a red, bloody gash.

And then I was hit by the most intense and terrible pain so far. I fell into a fetal position, willing the horror to stop, but unable to vocalize my wish through the screaming.

The only relief came when Noatak laid his hand on my head.

I woke up the next day and Noatak was gone. I was beyond surprised when I realized that he _hadn't _killed me, although I suspected he had tried and failed. It wasn't until I had tried to wash away the spilled water surround Atarah's bloated, rancid corpse that I understood what he had done.

He had taken away my bending. It had happened all at once, and with a touch of his hand.

I've had a lot of time to understand the true devastation that has come from losing my bending. It's like all of my limbs have been amputated, because bending was such a part of my identity as well as my routine.

I think that the transition from bender to non-bender would have been easier if I could at least surround myself with water in nature. Unfortunately, that was taken away from me too. Because shortly after I woke up, the Fire Nation officials were at my door. They had received a 'tip' from some traveler about a bad fight that had happened near our house last night. Apparently there were a lot of screams. I tried to explain, but who would believe me? To them, it just looked like I shoved my stepmom's head into a bucket of water. Of course, they never could find the bucket.

And now it's been 10 years I've been sitting in a Fire Nation prison cell thinking about what happened that night Noatak stumbled across me. I hear he's been doing well. He's all over the radio, making the change that he talked so much about the one night I knew him.

He never mentions about how he learned to make everyone 'equal.'

I taught Amon how to take away people bending.

And I'll have to live with that for the rest of my life.

**Edit: Changed TV to radio thanks to a reviewer's suggestion!**


End file.
